The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids (6 page)

     These ill-
meaning
souls whispered to the king that Zelaznu, the prophet of the Zelaznids, spoke in blasphemies and that his followers sought nothing less than the overthrow of the kingdom.  This was poison in the ear of the king.  By this time, it
must be said
,
King Xinh
had
, in consequence of
his
advanced age,
grown wearie of mind
to such an extent that
the
evil advice
of his trusted servants had great effect upon him.

      At last,
the king ordered that
Zelaznu
should be arrested
along with all of those foolis
h souls who might stand with the aging prophet
.  
But
there were those within the household of the king whose hearts were open to the teachings of Zelaznu, though they had not s
poken of it to others.  These person
s, thus knowledgeable of the king’s plan,
went
amongst the Zelaznids to war
n
them
of the coming catastrophe.  Soon, word spread
into the
streets and
fields of Salabad
:
Zelaznu was to
be arrested
. 
And
there were
those
who were prepared to take up arms in defense of their leader and his ideas. 
But
Zelaznu would not have it so.  He ordered
that those
who wished to follow the
truth in
their hearts
should take all that they could
bear
and meet
him
on the path
leading
into the mountains.

     This they did.  Sevent
ie-three men, sixtie women, and ninetie
-five children, all
fearful and
laden with their belongings, st
ood
up
on the path to the great mountains, wait
ing
f
or Zelaznu to lead them into those frozen
heights
, to what end they did not know.  Not a few of them trembled at the thought of such a journie,
of exchang
ing their
comfortable
homes for the dangers of the wild. 
But
,
believ
ing
in the
ir aging
leader, they waited.

     When Zelaznu came, it was without great haste, even though the
y could see that
the armie of Salabad,
led by their wearie king,
was
climb
ing the path
in pursuit of
the old man.

     “Here we stand,” Zelaznu called to his people, “Ginyu, and Hellene, and Sa
labadi as one.  And he
re comes
the might of the king
, seeking
to bring us to heel.”

     “Let us yet fight,” cried a voice.

     “That
we
shall not do,” Zelaznu called, “for to
look upon the faces of our enemies
would
also
be
to see
our kinsmen.  What need have we to strike down our own when we can make a new life in a new land?”

    
“But what of our homes?
  Are we to lose all that we know?”

     Here the great man raised his hands to the sky.

     “No,
we
shall not.  For all
that
we know lies within
;
we will take
all that we know wi
th us to sow further our seeds of knowledge and
to
harvest them at some distant place and time.  We will lose belongings this day, to be sure, but the
se things of the E
arth, the
se comforts that
have
ma
d
e us soft, can be got again if needs be, again and again.”

     Here, a loyal follower touched
Zelaznu
upon
the
arm.  “The armie comes.  We must go if we hope to outrun them.”

    
But
Zelanzu
said,
“I have no wish to run.”

     S
taring
upwards
,
the old man
shouted into the howling winds
in
words that tickled the minds of those assembled
then
faded, leaving behind no memorie
of their contents. 
A
ll at
once
there appeared a bright
light
, shining
like the sun
from the
hillside
. 
And
the Zelaz
n
ids, as one
, walked into that light, were swallowed up by it, and were seen no more.
[24]

~
23
~

Chapter 3

The Coming of Qutughai

T

he Zelaznids were, in fact, seen again, but not by those whom they left behind in Salabad
.  L
ikewise, neither the king nor those who had witnessed the miracle in the mountains would ever know what had become of those lost followers of Zelaznu.

     Yet, it
cannot be said
that all of the Zelaznids vanished from Salabad
upon
that fateful day
; f
or there were those within the cittie who were believers in the teachings of Zelaznu
, yet who
had not summoned the
courage
to flee Salabad with their brethren.  What is more,
in the days following the disappearance of Zelaznu and his people the
miracle in the mountains played upon the minds of the Salabadi most profoundlie. 
There were n
one
who could explain where their
kinsmen
had gone.  It took but little imagination for
them
to conclude that Zelaznu had been speaking the truth
all along
and
that he had led
his loyal followers
in
to the
haven
of
another world.

    
The first of the Salabadi to
become
new followers of Zelaznu were those who had
seen the Zelaznids vanish
.  Yet, like those secret Zelaznids who had remained in the cittie while the others fled,
few of
the new believers dared
to
speak of their faith.  For was it not so that those who had most openlie followed the teachings of Zelaznu
were
driven from the cittie?  With
the king’s thirst for vengeance
unquenched, would he not turn upon
those
who declared themselves
to be of like mind with the exiles
?

    
Thus it happened that the Salabadi who now became followers of Zelaznu, and
also
those who had always done so in secret, went on to nourish their faith behind closed doors, making this fact known to none but their children, whom they taught with the fullness of their hearts, hoping that the day would come when they might declare the truth once more.

S

pin the web of historie
forward more than one
thousand years, for that is how much time passed before the beliefs of the Zelaznids once
more played a part in the
workings
of Salabad.  In
the intervening
time, kings and emperors rose and fe
ll, as did the kingdoms and empires attached to them.  Warlords arrived one after another to bring the cittie of Salabad under their dominion, some successful
and others less so
.

     During this time
, the people lived their lives as best they could
,
allow
ing
changes in government to alter their ways as little as
was
possible.  Farmers cont
inued to harvest grains from the
fields a
nd swamps of the wetlands below the foothills
. 
Craftsmen
went on with their
various
trade
s,
exchanging
goods
to whosoever desired
them
and
for whatever price they could manage
.  Herdsmen continued to keep
close to the heights, remaining more detached from the ways of the world than other residents of Salabad.
 
And
throughout, a silent minoritie continued to teach their children of the old ways, and of the old tales, and of the
old memories that no warlord could erase.

    
Troubles
kept themselves from the
lands surrounding
Salabad until the coming of the
Mongol
Horde, that scourge of the earth, thrust upon the world for no other purpose than to build with the sword
and
cleanse
the Earth
with fire. 
Because of its distant location
across the great desert,
Salabad
w
as
long
spared
the ruling fist of this cruel and barbarous people; but
this reprieve did not last
. 
Of a sudden, t
he armies of Kublai Khan came to claim their own.
[25]
 

    
Occupied
as he was with the conquest of lower China, Kublai did not come to the gates of Salabad
in person
, but sent
as governor
a
n able
and
young commander by the name of Qutughai.  This strong warrior
earned
the trust of the great khan
through hard labour and the assistance
of his providential name.
[26]
 
And
Qutughai did not make his patron regret the appointment, for the young general saw to it that many citties along the Takla Makan
f
e
ll to the will of the Mongols
.

     Salabad, resting high within the hills, was the last cittie to fall before the might of the armies of the kh
an.  This is not to say that those
people fought harder or longer than their
neighbour
s
.  Rather let it
be said
that
Qutughai had
easier sheep to shear than Salabad.  Moreover, when it came time for that cittie to answer for its
future
, it chose not to fight
at all
but
rather
submit
ted
to the
workings of Fate
by
open
ing
the gates to the H
orde with
neither
sword
n
or sling
being drawn
in
its
defense.

     This suited Qutughai quite well, for he was
not
, despite his martial successes, a cruel man,
and
much preferr
ed
quiet
conque
st to
the
wanton
shedding of blood.  In thanks
to
the
cittie for its
submission, the
governor-
general granted the people of Salab
ad much freedom so
that life was little dif
ferent after the coming of the H
orde than it had been before,
though there was more
order in the streets
.  D
espite their proclivities toward dark
acts, it
may be said
that the
Mongols
knew the value of orde
r within
their
dominion.

    
As a consequence
, Salaba
d prospered more than other communities in
the
Takla Makan
, a fact that the
residents of that privileged cittie
used to their advantage by extending the reach of their trade
further than ever
before
. 
Moreover
Salabad
, under Qutughai’s rule, became one of the most tolerant places in the ancient world
, for the
Mongol
leader
allowed
r
eligious freedom
among
the people,
provided t
hey
did not
speak
out
against
the faith of the Mongols.  This is where
my own people
fe
ll into opposition with the
Horde
, to our
gre
ater des
truction.
[27]

    
The people of Salabad fared well under this new dictum. 
Most residents of the cittie
worshipped the various
deitie
s of their ancestors
and found no difficultie in
add
ing
the Mongol gods to their own pantheon.
 
Thus
Tengri,
[28]
Bai-Ulgau and Esege Malan
[29]
, and
also
Ot
[30]
merge
d
in the minds of the Salabadi with their own legends of Nüwa and Fuxi, the sister-wife and brother-husband who had, out of boredom it was said, formed mankind
from
the clay.  
In this way,
the ancient stories of both
the
Mongol
s
and
the
Salabadi combine
d
into a single legend. 
Thus
the
varied
historie of the people could, on occasion, be heard recited
over the course of several days
through
elaborate
üliger,
those
epic poems known so well to the people of that region
,
and brought
to life by bards on their
moriin
k
huur.
[31]

     In such an atmosphere as
this, it
was not long before those wise and private
Z
elaznids
of the
cittie,
who
dwelt secretlie within the walls of Salabad
,
broke their silence and bravelie declared
their beliefs once more. 

     T
here were
those
within the cittie
who
would not hear of the teachings of Zelaznu, for they had been raised in
families which
had always stood against the ideas of others.
 
But
there were
other
forces at work now than had existed at the time of Zelaznu.  For
now
the Zelaznids, despite the passage of the years, were a larger number within Salabad than would have been thought
for
a people who
had so long kept the secrets of
their hearts. 

    
Of great importance was the
presence of Qutughai, a
s
learn
e
d
a
man
as
ever
existed
among the brutes of his warrior race.  This great and wise leader, brought up though he was with blood in his nostrils, heard much that was good in the ways of the Zelaznids and
this
impressed
him.
 
It therefore
came to pass
that the Zelaznids
again
emerged in Salabad as a protected people, with Qutughai standing before all as their stoutest
defender.  Nor was this the sole
boon to those ancient believers, for the trading system
protected
by Qutughai’s armie also serve
d
to
aid
the Zelaznids, spreading their faith throughout the Tarim basin and the Takla Makan.

    
In this way,
the teachings of Zelaznu made their way to the east, earning some few converts in each town and cittie through which its missionaries passed, until reaching the terminus of the winding Tarim, that ancient cittie of Ergyan.  There, in the marshlands along the
great desert, the tales of Zela
z
n
u found welcome ears, for there were
yet
in Ergyan descendants of those same Ginyu who had traveled with Majumin so long ago, and who still recited legends of his strange journey.

    
T
he tales of Zelaznu gave the Ginyu of Ergyan much delight, so much so that four score of them resolved to divest themselves of land
in that cittie
and make their way to Salabad, so that they might be reunited with their distant
kinsmen
once more. 
And
there were
other folk who likewise embarked upon
th
is
pilgrimage.